News broke today that the UK Government will shelve the ongoing #China Audit” (a manifesto commitment) and seek closer economic ties with China. Let’s unpack the issues with this in a 🧵:

1/21 In the past few days, British news has been preoccupied with espionage allegations surrounding Yang Tengbo. There was also an “urgent question” raised in the House of Commons that led to debate about China, UK security, human rights, and values.

2/21

I’ve been studying various aspects of social movements and contentious politics for almost 30 years.

At one point, I taught a class comparing & analysing forms of student protest/campus activism.

Here’s a brief thread on making sense of what’s going on across US campuses:

1/26 Without taking any normative position, I find several facets of the recent protests interesting. Let me highlight three of them:

1) claims, targets, and framing

2) responses and repression

3) diffusion and protest cycles

2/26

Along with most other scholars of my generation, I've been studying political #economy in #China for more than 25 years.

What's happening there is not so simple as 'party's over'.

For a little context and analysis, here is a brief 🧵:

1/25
#Politics @CamGeopolitics @NCUSCR China experienced rapid economic growth in the 1980s, but with declining government revenue, high inflation, and significant political/social upheaval.
Growth was driven mainly by expansion of non-plan activities ('growing out of the plan').
All this changed in 1994.

2/25

#Indonesia’s new criminal code is absolutely illiberal, but it is not anti-legal. It serves the interests of some #elites, but not others.

So, how do we best parse its impact on #law, #politics, or #society?

A short 🧵based on ideas from:
cambridge.org/core/books/rul…

1/13 Fundamentally, it pushes Indonesia’s criminal law system toward what I call a mobilizational legal regime, and away from being more of a ’rule by law’ order.

This is due to a reason many might find counter-intuitive: it’s actually empowering previously excluded groups.

2/13

I've been studying various aspects of #protest & contentious #politics in #China for 25 years.

What's happening now is novel, interesting, & potentially quite important. But we need to be careful about drawing conclusions or making predictions. A🧵:
1/22
@CamGeopolitics @NCUSCR Since 1989, we've seen 5 main strands/repertoires of contention in China:

1) labour protest
2) rural protest
3) student protest
4) urban governance protest
5) systematic political dissent

Each of these has usually been disaggregated locally and separated from the others.

2/22